


Box my thoughts and give me some relief

by Joyfulldreams



Series: The Sleep Cycle [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Auditory Cuddles, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Illustrated, Intrusive Thoughts, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pre-Sburb/Sgrub, Sleep Deprivation, but just this once he gets a little help with it, dirk is still a tightly wound ball of self-loathing, mild anxiety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-25
Updated: 2017-10-25
Packaged: 2019-01-23 05:24:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12499740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Joyfulldreams/pseuds/Joyfulldreams
Summary: It's not all that often you get quite this sleep-deprived, but those times you do can make your already shitty life into something near hellish. You don't know how to ask for help, but once in a blue moon, the help gets offered anyway. And you're just too tired to bother pushing him away.(Jake helps Dirk get some sleep as best he can when they're so far away from each other.)(Features art!)





	Box my thoughts and give me some relief

**Author's Note:**

> Jammed this in the strilonde fan jam server on discord not too long after writing and they must breathe. It ranges from loosely to directly connected to that, but you don't need to read it to enjoy this one. :P

You are no stranger to insomnia. In fact, with how much time you end up spending with it, insomnia is probably your best fucking friend. Except the two of you don’t really get along like friends. So in reality, you’re more like barely cohabitating roommates. Shit, that’s pretty good actually. You should write that down somewhere. But you don’t really keep pencils and paper around. Talk about archaic.

You shift from your current position -- staring blankly at your desktop screen -- to go look for pencils to write with, and paper to write on. You’re about five minutes into your search when you realize it would probably be easier to find them if you had the lights on. When did it get dark? Shit. Fuck. Did something break? Fuck.

You turn the lights on and okay, awesome. Not broken. Something else could be broken, though. Something is usually always broken. You should get to fixing some of it after you find paper. And pencils. Which you don’t actually manage to do, because after another...indiscriminate period of time -- spent sort of staring at your various posters -- you realize jesus christ, you can literally type anything you want at any time with your shades. Or you could have used your tablet to write with when you were still _at your computer_.

You don’t even remember what it is you were going to write down.

In your attempt to remember, you basically just decide to sit your ass down on the floor. Your legs are too jittery to keep standing, and-- woah, hey, there’s your hat/plush pile. Convenient. Now what were you trying to...

Oh yeah. How you haven’t had any sleep in about 74 hours. That.

The machinations of your life cause your relationship with sleep to be fairly complicated. (You’re not going to go on any tangents where you anthropomorphize another abstract concept related to consciousness, because thinking on it that’s actually pretty fucking stupid, why were you so possessed to write that shit down?) You are sort of always simultaneously awake and asleep. There is your waking body on Earth, and your dream self on Derse. Your dream self is technically only meant to be active when you’re asleep, you think, but instead you are conscious there no matter what your normal body is doing.

Your dream self is different from your main body. It’s less...material? Less static? You could probably think of a better way to describe it if you weren’t quite so sleep-deprived. Either way, it doesn’t really feel fatigue, can inexplicably defy gravity, and sometimes “resets” itself when you wake up on earth. It’s the self you might be if you were in a dream that just so happened to be real. Which is...what it actually is, you guess.

When you go to sleep on Earth, your body rests and you remain conscious on Derse. You usually spend your time asleep in the dark kingdom keeping up with the local news and politics, as well as piecing together whatever information you can about the game you now know you and your friends are destined to play. You also do a lot of planning and scheming, but mostly you just kind of...fuck around. Sometimes you go watch Roxy sleep, since she’s there, and keeping her from wandering too far while sleepwalking is basically the only physical human interaction you’ve ever had. That makes it pretty difficult to resent how often it happens, which is why you don’t.

The gist of it is, while you usually are able to rest, you are literally always conscious in one form or another. Usually in multiple forms, simultaneously. It can get really fucking exhausting, if you’re being honest with yourself.

Which is why, when you find yourself unable to just turn one of your selves _off_ for a few hours, it’s incredibly frustrating.

Things don’t normally get this bad. One night without sleep is very common, you usually have at least one a week. You lose track of time while working on a project or watching/reading something. Nothing to even write home about. Two nights? Maybe once every month and a half, when you get really absorbed in something you need to get done, or the clusterfuck that is your life causes things to just not stop from keep happening.

Three? That’s just ridiculous. Those are accidents. That’s when you have a two-nighter and accidentally drink too much fucking coffee and now you’re _stuck_.

What’s the fucking point of being up for 72 hours? You can’t get anything done. Your fine motor and critical thinking skills get shot so far to hell, trying to work on literally anything is an exercise in embarrassing futility. You can’t even escape to Derse for a reprieve from jitters and your racing heart because the fatigue from your waking self just follows you. In fact, you spent at least an hour just flitting your awareness back and forth between your two bodies and chuckling hysterically to yourself about how it feels kind of weird -- like you’re stuck between them, not really anywhere at _all_.

Instead of being productive, you just sit around and try to do literally anything to distract yourself from the rising paranoia and anxiety long enough to GET THE FUCK TO SLEEP.

But it just aint happening, folks. No position is comfortable enough, no white noise relaxing enough. The second you think you can finally feel yourself start to relax and drift off, you think you hear something, or panicked thoughts race through your head that demand you get up get up right this second something is happening go _now_.

You’re kind of glad your friends are all asleep, because otherwise you are positive the second you saw one of their icons turn green, you’d be unable to resist the urge to message them. Then you would never be able to live down the mortification of rambling at them almost non-stop with absolutely zero filter. Like, wow, isn’t it so great none of them are...

Oh hey. Jake just came on.

You’re like a second too late in stopping yourself when you automatically open up his chat window. What the FUCK. Come _on_ you were literally just reminding yourself _not_ to do that, you stupid fuck. He probably isn’t even on, just one of his fifty different computers sleep-cycling or something and briefly changing his status.

You keep the window open, though. It just makes you feel...something. You’re not sure what, exactly, but it’s something.

There’s some movement out of the corner of your eye and you actually fucking bash the side of your head against your boxspring trying to whip around and look at -- at your wall. It was your wall, you’re just hallucinating again, god damnit. Or maybe it was a bug or something? Maybe. It takes you another five seconds to realize that it was actually... that the typing indicator for Jake’s chat window is circling.

What.

golgothasTerror [GT] began pestering timeausTestified [TT]  
GT: Strider what the devil fucking dickens are you doing up at this hour?!  
GT: Hold on.   
GT: Nevermind i just realized thats sort of a stupid question.

You do a whole lot of blinking in order to, like, process what is happening.

GT: Or wait actually is this just the autoresponder?  
GT: If it is then you can safely ignore all of this THANKS.  
TT: Hold on.   
TT: First off not the AR just clearing that up right out the gate.  
TT: B: I’m going to bounce your stupid question right back at you.  
TT: It is by my estimations precisely ass-crack late o’clock for you.  
TT: What the fuck are YOU doing up?  
GT: Uh.  
TT: Like holy shit, bro, what is this thing I’m looking at? Is it a pot?  
TT: Like a teapot?  
TT: That is distinctly matte in...  
TT: Uh.  
TT: Black.   
TT: Also I’m a kettle.  
TT: Like.  
TT: What the fuck dude?

You finally pause in your ramble to realize that holy shit, that might just be one of the most embarrassing things you have _ever said in your life_. Did you really just forget the word BLACK? In your mortification you slide down your plush pile until your neck is nearly at a 90 degree angle with your chest.

GT: Hahaha hoo boy dirk thats...   
GT: Whelp you sure did catch me red-handed in some hypocritical bs bro!  
GT: Ive definitely got no business riding your caboose about being up late.

You’d like you ride his caboose. Among other things.

You actually slap yourself when you realize you are five words into typing that into the chat.

TT: You haven’t answered the question though.  
TT: Why are you up?  
TT: Is something wrong?  
TT: If it is you can tell me, you know.  
TT: I think we’re like...  
TT: There, now, right?

You are thinking back to that time that you listened to Jake cry for a solid twenty minutes in the middle of a panic attack. Like, once you reach that point it’s totally cool for him to tell you about needing help for stuff, right? You’re not this unapproachable robot to him anymore, right? He hasn’t made any more robot jokes about you since then, as far as you can remember. Which admittedly isn't much. And maybe he still could be making them, just not to your face. Fuck. He probably is.

God, what do you think you’re going to be able to help him with like this? Absolutely jack and also shit. You almost want to take back the question but you are definitely, definitely not going to do that.

GT: Ummm.  
GT: Im not sure where ‘there’ is but i swear im ok dirk really.  
GT: Just had something of a weird dream is all.

Oh. He had a nightmare? Shit. You feel bad. You don’t really have nightmares because you don’t actually dream. Sometimes your life is a waking nightmare, you suppose, but that’s not really the same thing. You wish you could relate here but you can’t, and you’re going to screw this up.

TT: Oh damn.  
TT: Do you wanna talk about it?  
TT: You don’t have to. No pressure or anything.  
TT: I just heard that helps sometimes.  
TT: If you want. I’ll listen.   
GT: Well no thank you actually but thanks for the offer?  
GT: I can barely even remember it now anyway.  
TT: Oh. Okay. Cool.  
TT: Cool cool cool.  
TT: Totally get it.   
TT: We can talk about something else instead maybe.  
TT: Like the word “cool”.  
TT: It’s actually pretty interesting linguistically right.  
TT: Are you interested in stuff like that?  
GT: I guess we could but more importantly dirk  
GT: Are YOU okay?  
GT: Youre acting kind of funny!

Shit. Abort abort. The second you make your friends worry about you is when you realize things have gone too far off the rails. Jake especially has enough going on in his life -- he just had a nightmare! -- you do _not_ need to add to that. You need to exit this conversation gracefully.

Gracefully.

TT: You know what’s also funny?  
TT: You going back to sleep.

....

Sometimes, just sometimes. Only sometimes, you swear. You want to be able to fling yourself off your roof, secure in the knowledge that when your brittle bones hit the surface of the water and shatter, you will never open any pair of eyes again.

That’s not how your life works, though. If you did that, you would just be stuck on Derse forever. In either hypothetical case, you can’t give in to that (rare) temptation. You’ve got responsibilities. Heavy as they are sometimes, you can’t just abandon them. Like how you need to at least attempt to save face from that brutal nosedive just now.

GT: Uuhhhh what???  
TT: Fuck. Ignore that.  
TT: Mistyped.   
TT: The original joke was awful anyway so I’m not even going to bother with it ironically.   
TT: You should just go back to sleep, dude.   
GT: Oh there is no way i am not getting to the bottom of this now.  
GT: Something smells mighty fishy!  
GT: My first thought is that you might be messing with me but that doesnt seem right.  
TT: Jake. Just go to bed.  
TT: These are not the secrets youre looking for.  
GT: See you just really botched the whole jedi mind trick joke. And you don’t usually go for star wars references anyway!  
GT: You my pal seem addled!

Okay, so you’re panicking a little now. You don’t know what to do. You can’t tell Jake about the state you’re in. It’s just not an option.

Right?

Yeah, duh. Not only is it embarrassing, what can Jake even do about it? YOU can’t even get yourself to sleep. Why would you ever put him in that position? He’ll just end up feeling bad that he can’t help. You’ll make him feel _bad_ , because you’re just that fucking pathetic! Oh yeah, and he’ll probably pity you. You don’t want him to pity you, you want him to think you’re cool so he’ll like you. And that’s really fucking selfish of you, honestly. You’re disgusting. You’ve got no right to be his friend, let ALONE his boyfriend.

GT: Dirk?  
GT: Hey buddy i didnt mean to embarrass you or anything by pointing out your flub just now.   
GT: Its too late for that kind of friendly banter anyway.   
GT: Star wars is freaking awesome after all!  
GT: You know actually i think i know whats up. Youre always staying up so late.  
GT: All those hours of missed sleep must be finally catching up to you huh?

While you’re mired in a really aggressive onslaught of intrusive thoughts, Jake gets to the bottom of your issues with a disturbing amount of clarity. That’s so...him. He’s so great. And smart. He pretends not to be, though, and sometimes it really bothers you, but you also wish at times that you could claim you were too stupid to deal with some of the shit that gets thrown your way. So you kind of get it.

TT: Yeah.  
TT: Maybe. 

Maybe? Maybe?? What are you doing? Didn’t you already establish you can’t be admitting to any of this shit? What do you think you’re doing? You’re just going to abdicate responsibility for yourself in the hope Jake will just-- what, snap his fingers and fix it for you? That’s not how things go for you, you waste of space. You just need to fucking stop talking to him and go to sleep already. But you can’t do that, can you? You go around pretending you have all this self-control when really, you’re a disaster of a person and your entire life is a mess that you secretly hope you will never have to clean up, so you keep letting it get worse and worse.

Nobody is ever going to clean that shit up for you. The second any of your friends get a glimpse at your true dumpster fire of a self, they’ll abandon you in disgust.

...Sometimes you really wish, though. You wish you could just...

GT: Aw phooey.   
GT: I have a hard time getting to sleep too every now and again but i dont think ive got it nearly as bad as you do.  
GT: Like right now I’m all jittery from my dream and maybe other things. I cant possibly get back to snoozing like this.   
GT: So were sort of two peas in a pod right?  
TT: I guess.  
GT: Hey actually. Why dont we try something...new?  
GT: Kind of.  
TT: New?  
GT: I don’t think we’ve ever really done a call this late!  
GT: Except for that one time but those were um extenuating circumstances i think hahaha.  
GT: Maybe we can both let out all our nervous energy more efficiently by batting our gums at each other!  
GT: I think we can both agree that as indisputably great as our verbal beat sessions are theyre also fairly effective at tuckering a guy out.

Jake is throwing you a lifeline. He’s even framing it as you helping him. Because he knows you’re a disaster.

He kind of already knows you’re a disaster and he’s still here, talking to you anyway.

TT: Sure, I guess?  
TT: If you feel so strongly about it.   
TT: But fair warning, I’m probably not going to be the best conversational partner.  
TT: Not that I have been thus far.  
GT: Oh come off it i dont care about that.   
GT: Besides i think im kind of curious about this sort of new you.   
GT: There are certain aspects of it im finding pretty damn pleasant actually.   
TT: Okay?  
GT: Anyway here we go!

golgothasTerror wants to initiate a voice call! [Accept] [Reject]

Oh. Shit. It’s happening. It’s already happening and very suddenly you wonder how you’re going to be able to talk in the position you’re currently in. You struggle to gain control over your incredibly shaky limbs to sit up before....answering, you guess.

Almost immediately after accepting the call, you remember you can’t fucking do calls with just your shades, you moron. Jake is stuck talking at nothing for thirty whole seconds while you scramble to grab your headphones off your desk. Since the last incident you added a microphone attachment to them, which you can sync with your shades wirelessly. You do that, and are greeted to Jake’s way too chipper voice mid-sentence.

“--so if you think it’s worth a shot maybe we can give it a whirl?”

You probably missed a lot of really important shit just now. “S-shit. Sorry, Jake, could you repeat that? My uh. My headphones weren’t working.” God, you’re not able to talk properly. Your voice is all over the place, stuttering and pausing, and if you’re not careful it might just break on you. In reality, it’s probably not all that noticeable, but for how you usually try to talk it’s distracting to you.

Jake is quiet for a second, where you worry he’s already on to you. But then, “Oh, alright!” You can hear the rustle of what you assume are sheets. “To begin with, Dirk, are you actually in bed buster?”

You are currently standing and leaning on your desk. “Uh. No.”

Jake snorts. “Well that’s your first problem, buddy. I’m in bed and if we’re going to do this bang up to the elephant you’ve got to assume the position! Hop to it!!”

There is something about the way he says that which seems to physically compel you to do as he says. It’s almost scary how quickly you flop onto your bed, and how unconscious you are of the action. What is even happening?

“Is that the sound of your bed springs compressing under your weight I hear?”

“Yeah,” you confirm, dumbly.

“Atta boy. We’re like...a third of the way there already! I think. How are you feeling?”

“Tired. But not tired enough to actually sleep, apparently.”

“Yeah I figured that haha! Me too.”

An awkward silence falls. It’s not... _tha_ t awkward, though. At least for you. Listening to Jake’s breathing and the crackle of static is. Nice.

“Dirk? You haven’t crashed on me already, have you?” Jake says, a little bit of concern in his voice. Which you can’t abide by.

“Nah. Just not all that talkative right now,” you admit, honestly. “You said some things before that I missed. What was it?”

“Oh. Well...” he clears his throat. “I just proposed that we could take turns kind of babbling about whatever pops into our heads! Air out all those nerves in the process of getting cream-crackered?”

“Nerves,” you repeat. Is Jake nervous? He doesn’t sound it. Then again, what would you know? “Am I making you nervous?”

Jake sucks in a breath. “What? Heavens, no. You’re doing just swell actually. I’m having a fine time.” That makes your chest constrict a little, but not in a bad way. “I just think that a lot of what keeps you so keyed up at night is probably nerves right? It certainly is for me. Too many thoughts whizzing about the old noggin.”

“Basically, yeah. Other things, too, though,” yeah. You wish it were JUST your anxieties keeping you up.

“Oh? Like what?”

“Caffeine,” you mention, feeling how fast your heart is beating in your chest. You’re not going to lie, it could partially be just from talking to Jake, but that’s not the point. “Hearing things. And...nerves, yeah. But the nerves are kind of seperate from the thoughts. Or can be, anyway.”

“Huh. Well I don’t know what to do about the caffeine, but that other stuff sounds atrocious. You want to elaborate? Get the jump start on yakkity yak track?”

“Uh...” you think about it. But there are so many reasons you just can’t. A large one being that talking takes up too much energy, but just enough to keep you awake. Sort of defeats the purpose, you think. “I’d rather not, if that’s cool.”

“Oh that’s fine! I was actually kind of hoping to go first, anyway.” You wonder why he didn’t just start with that, but then you remember that he’s been trying to include you and shit this entire time. Right. He’s being a good friend, that’s why he didn’t just immediately launch into whatever he wanted to talk about. Not that you mind, at all. You really do like just listening to him talk.

“So...” you try to be a good friend, too, and remain engaged in the conversation. Or pretend to be, anyway. “Is this gonna be about your nightmare?”

“No! No no no. Not...directly anyway. Like I said I don’t even remember what it was about!” You’re kind of relieved. You’re not sure how well you’d manage something like that. “It’s more just...the kind of things I think about, on nights like this.”

“Oh,” you add, to let him know you’re listening.

“Like...oftentimes I find myself wondering what I’d be doing right now if you were here, with me. Or if I were there with you!”

...you do, too. But you don’t let yourself go too far with hypotheticals -- with things that you know will never happen -- because after a certain point, it just hurts. You prefer to plan for the things on the more plausible end of the spectrum; things that you hope to _make_ happen. So you have something to think about, and so you can be prepared for it. But Jake’s the guy with the hyperactive imagination. So this is...probably going to be interesting.

“Because, you know, Dirk. I hope this isn’t too on-the-nose. But it just grinds my gears sometimes knowing how much you worry yourself to pieces over every little thing. You just stretch yourself so _thin_! And I wish I could be there, to help put the pieces back together. Sew you back up. And...and maybe you could do the same for me, sometimes. I know you’re already practically a pro at it, haha! How much better would it be if we could do all that stuff in person?”

You want to respond but you can’t. Your breath has been stolen from you. You don’t dare interrupt this.

“It’s just got me so antsy. I can imagine you lying there in your bed, tossing and turning, head all abuzz. And if I were there...if I were there _right now_ , you know what I’d do?”

Oh fuck. Oh, fuck. You wish you could think of anything more coherent than that, but you really can’t. Wait. He wanted a response from you, didn’t he?

“Uh.” Shit that’s not a response. Jake doesn’t seem to care.

“I think I’d take a look at the state of your blankets. What’s that looking like right about now Dirk?”

What is going on, right now? You’ve lost track of this entirely. You think Jake is going for something...really specific, and none of this is even remotely heterosexual. Does he realize what he’s doing? Is he aware of what he’s saying, implying? How many times have you gotten deep into a conversation where he starts getting like...not quite like _this_ , but similar, and you suddenly start questioning everything?

“Dirk? Are you asleep?”

“Wha--no. Sorry.” Right. Don’t leave Jake hanging. Whatever... _this_ is, you don’t want it to stop.

“Your sheets. Are you under them?”

“No,” you say, unable to lie.

“Well I think I’d definitely fix that right away. Lift them up and drape them over you. Tuck you in all nice and snug. Say, why don’t you do that? Like I would do? Just to complete the picture I’m trying to paint here.”

You guess getting under the covers can’t hurt. But you feel almost frozen, listening to Jake talk, his voice slowly but surely lowering in register until it’s almost downright... _husky_. Or. Or maybe he’s just fucking tired, holy shit, don’t take this the wrong way you moron. Either way, you obediently find yourself with your blankets over you, lying on your back. You stare at the ceiling and if you squint, you can almost see Jake -- what he looks like as he talks to you, lying in his own bed. Picturing what you look like, right now.

“How’s that? Warmer? More comfortable?” he asks, seemingly inferring that you did what he said from what he could hear on your end of the call.

“Yeah, kind of.” Not even really because of the blankets. Because -- because you imagine Jake moved them for you. You actually pull them up a little more than you normally would because...you imagine that’s what Jake would do.

“I’m pretty cozy too, actually. Maybe...you know, if it’d be alright. I could worm my way under your blankets with you?”

Your heart is beating really damn fast and you know it is definitely not just from the caffeine.

“Just to...have that little remind you’re not alone and all. You don’t have to work yourself up over nothing. Plus I just...” he pauses, and you can tell this is like. Important. “Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to be with someone for a night? Just there. You know?”

“Yeah,” you say, immediately. You know what he means. This is an understanding, a longing, you both share -- courtesy of the similarities in your lifestyle. It’s not necessarily unique to just you two, and you’ve never really talked about it like this, but...it’s there. “I do know.”

“So what if I were there right now. I’d settle in behind you and...and try to turn back the crank on that hyperactive chrome dome of yours, just for tonight. How does that sound?” you don’t know what emotion is in Jake’s voice, but it’s something, and it makes you pay attention.

“That sounds real fucking nice.”

“Right? Golly I...hmm.” You hear some more shuffling sounds, and Jake lets out a sigh.

“...Jake?” You’re fucking curious. You don’t want him to stop talking. Your entire world has narrowed down to just his voice and vividly picturing everything he’s describing. “What are you doing?”

“Oh just. Grabbing a pillow. I don’t know, I had a silly thought I could...pretend it’s you! Haha.” He goes quiet for a second, and you say nothing, because what the fuck do you say to that? “Is that weird?”

It’s kind of weird, you think. But everything is weird. And...and just for tonight. _Just_ for tonight, like Jake said. All of this shit would be nice. “Nah,” you say, and you find yourself rolling onto your side and groping around for one of your own pillows. You grab it and one or two plushes -- and hey. There’s cal. You grab him, too. “Might not even be such a terrible idea.”

You maneuver all of that shit behind you, let it press flush against your back. And then you...you close your eyes and pretend it’s Jake.

“Oh,” Jake says, and you can tell he’s getting tired. And, to your genuine fucking surprise, so are you. You feel relaxed. At peace. And so long as Jake stays here with you, maybe you can circumvent all of those intrusive thoughts and panic buttons, and go the fuck to sleep. “Well what about you? What...what would you do?”

“Mmm,” you murmur, and you don’t even have the energy to feel embarrassed about it. “I think I’d tell you to go to sleep. And turn the lights off.” Your light is still on. You remember you installed that clap functionality into them as a...sort of joke, forever ago. That was a popular gimmick in the 2000’s at some point, and it was pretty easy to program. You don’t really use it that often, but. Now it’s real useful, because you use what little energy you have left in your limbs to clap twice, and the lights go off. You suddenly feel ten degrees more tired.

Back on Derse, you can feel something shift. Ah. _Finally._

“Dirk?” Jake says, and his voice is quieter and sounds a little more muffled. “Is your hair soft?”

Fuck. Now you’re imagining Jake’s forehead pressed flush against you. He’s close enough to feel his breath against the back of your neck, and hear it in your ears. Which you can, literally, through your headphones. You shiver. “Let’s say it is,” you reply, because you honestly don’t know, and you just want to be what Jake wants.

“Oh, good,” he mutters. He’s practically asleep already, you think. Your own eyes droop back closed. “That’s...good.”

“Yeah,” you manage, though you yourself can feel your awareness slipping away from Earth to Derse. “This is.”

You hang on, just for a little longer. You tug Cal’s arm around you and squeeze it, as if it were Jake wrapping you up to his chest. Some delirious part of you genuinely tries to impart some sort of message through squeezing that soft puppet hand. Reassurance to Jake. That you’re there. That he’s there with you. You listen to how he sounds as he falls asleep, and you have never felt closer to another person in your life

When you come to awareness on Derse, you’re smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> Added the finished art piece for this one a little later, this time not in canon style haha. I'm experimenting. 
> 
> Here's the [tumblr post](http://joyfulldreams.tumblr.com/post/166838151764/dirk-jake-says-and-his-voice-is-quieter-and) for said art, with a slightly bigger version of the piece! :)


End file.
